297. Mars, being the nearest of the superior planets, is the most favourably situated for observation. The chief markings on its surface—provisionally interpreted as being land and water—are fairly permanent and therefore recognisable; several tolerably consistent maps of the surface have been constructed; and by observation of certain striking features the rotation period has been determined to a fraction of a second. Signor Schiaparelli of Milan detected at the opposition of 1877 a number of intersecting dark lines generally known as canals, and as the result of observations made during the opposition of 1881-82 announced that certain of them appeared doubled, two nearly parallel lines being then seen instead of one. These remarkable observations have been to a great extent confirmed by other observers, but remain unexplained.
The visible surfaces of Jupiter and Saturn appear to be layers of clouds; the low density of each planet (1·3 and ·7 respectively, that of water being 1 and of the earth 5·5), the rapid changes on the surface, and other facts indicate that these planets are to a great extent in a fluid condition, and have a high temperature at a very moderate distance below the visible surface. The surface markings are in each case definite enough for the rotation periods to be fixed with some accuracy; though it is clear in the case of Jupiter, and probably also in that of Saturn, that—as with the sun ([§ 298])—different parts of the surface move at different rates.
Laplace had shewn that Saturn’s ring (or rings) could not be, as it appeared, a uniform solid body; he rashly inferred—without any complete investigation—that it might be an irregularly weighted solid body. The first important advance was made by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), best known as a writer on electricity and other branches of physics. Maxwell shewed (1857) that the rings could neither be continuous solid bodies nor liquid, but that all the important dynamical conditions would be satisfied if they were made up of a very large number of small solid bodies revolving independently round the sun.[167] The theory thus suggested on mathematical grounds has received a good deal of support from telescopic evidence. The rings thus bear to Saturn a relation having some analogy to that which the minor planets bear to the sun; and Kirkwood pointed out in 1867 that Cassini’s division between the two main rings can be explained by the perturbations due to certain of the satellites, just as the corresponding gaps in the minor planets can be explained by the action of Jupiter ([§ 294]).
The great distance of Uranus and Neptune naturally makes the study of them difficult, and next to nothing is known of the appearance or constitution of either; their rotation periods are wholly uncertain.
Fig. 95.—Saturn and its rings. From a drawing by Professor Barnard.
[To face p. 384.
Mercury and Venus, being inferior planets, are never very far from the sun in the sky, and therefore also extremely difficult to observe satisfactorily. Various bright and dark markings on their surfaces have been recorded, but different observers give very different accounts of them. The rotation periods are also very uncertain, though a good many astronomers support the view put forward by Sig. Schiaparelli, in 1882 and 1890 for Mercury and Venus respectively, that each rotates in a time equal to its period of revolution round the sun, and thus always turns the same face towards the sun. Such a motion—which is analogous to that of the moon round the earth and of Japetus round Saturn (chapter XII., [§ 267])—could be easily explained as the result of tidal action at some past time when the planets were to a great extent fluid.